Read Bump by Matt Wallace

[conuly]

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53287279-bump

Middle grade is about the only area where I really enjoy realistic fiction.

And for the most part, this was a pretty enjoyable read, right up until the end.

So all through the book it's been obvious that the state inspector has it out for them and is either making stuff up entirely or is outright sabotaging their equipment. We don't know why, but he says a lot of stuff about how "Papi" needs to learn he can't just sacrifice kids to his ambitions, which if you ask me is a plenty good reason for him to have a grudge - he lost somebody important to wrestling in an accident, and now he's angry-sad.

This all comes to a head when our protagonist sees a "mysterious person" dumping rats into the gym from the roof and is sorta-accidentally shoved off. The inspector comes to visit, says he's "glad she's okay" and then they actually all get hauled in to a more in-depth review of their license because a minor was climbing ladders onto the roof when unsupervised.

So far so good, but then our protagonist works out that actually he's a frustrated former luchador himself who believes her mentor deliberately passed him over in order to continue promoting his family members and she encounters him about to set the place on fire, whereupon he morphs into a mustache-twirling cackling villain who is willing to just leave her in place as he commits arson. (Or he's willing to threaten it anyway. It's not clear if he actually did intend to do child murder to cover up his tracks.)

I don't like it, for two reasons.

First, because the motivation we'd been hinting towards was a stronger one, which dovetails nicely with the fact that both the protagonist and the mentor have recently experienced death of a loved one, and also he talked so much about kid's lives and safety that it's decidedly weird that he suddenly would toss it away at the end. We could've had a much more satisfying confrontation where he's legitimately shaken up at the idea that he's putting a child at risk in order to shut the gym down.

Secondly, because he's not the first person in this book to accuse "Papi" of having a bias in whom he promotes. The protagonist's first friend at the gym makes that same accusation, this time accusing him of being biased towards Mexicans.

Two characters in the same book making the same accusation, one of whom is a generally sympathetic character, starts to look valid. Either one of them doing it could be chalked up to jealousy, which is what the author does, but if both of them do it then you have to address the possibility that there's some truth there - which is what he doesn't do. It's not like real life, where two accusations in a long career are just two random accusations. These are a large percentage of the speaking parts in this book! They have weight just by being there!

So instead of ending on a good note we're stuck with the uneasy and utterly unaddressed possibility that the mentor is biased and is not even going to be confronted on it so he can learn and grow, and will therefore keep harming his students in this small way, and the students will continue to reject all such suggestions as personal jealousy than as a pattern of behavior.

Comments

[ioplokon]

Yeah. I know it is the convention of the genre but a middle schooler in wrestling school stresses me out, considering what we know about concussions specifically and bumping more generally. Plus like. It's a shady industry. So State Athletic Commissioner seems to have some valid points!

[conuly]

"Bump" here appears to be the pro-wrestling/luchador jargon for "falling properly so you don't hurt any part of yourself, especially the head" or "training to fall properly".

Also, the kid used to do gymnastics so... just as dangerous with the fun bonus of fat shaming and (at least in her gym) extra racism!

[ioplokon]

Right but drilling bumping on the ring or floor (with no mats) is something that's very common in wrestling schools and also something a lot of wrestlers now think put excessive wear on their bodies (esp since lucha libre rings are harder than US-style rings). Obviously you have to learn to fall but doing thousands of bumps on concrete? Maybe not.

In fact, the concerns about overtraining and repetitive injury are very similar to the concerns I have with gymnastics. Though they do usually train and compete on mats. Overtraining/overdrilling is really bad for kids.

[conuly]

Well, we are told they do their training in the ring (though I don't know if they use mats as well) and you'll note that one of our inspector's complaints was that they needed to repad the ring.

Because that motivation made more damn sense!